Since 1982 Lauderdale Yacht Club (Fort Lauderdale, Fl) has been host to the annual Finn Midwinter Championship, usually held in early February with racing in the open Atlantic Ocean. Competitors from throughout the world were given the opportunity to spend a few weeks training in the ideal conditions and the club welcomed past, current, and future Olympians. Among the winners of the perpetual trophy are names such as John Bertrand, Larry Lemieux, Jonas Christensen, Lasse Hortnaes, Zack Railey, Russ Silvestri, Peter Commette, Peter Holmberg, Tom Lihan, and countless others. 



In 2002 the club added the Women’s Radial class in order to promote singlehanded Olympic-level sailing and to expose the local youth sailors to the best female athletes in the world. In recent years the regatta has been scheduled to follow the Miami Olympic Classes event held in late January on Biscayne Bay. 



The ocean venue offers the competitors the challenge of big waves and big breeze; frontal passages offer a diverse mixture of sailing conditions and the club’s race committee is dedicated to offering the most challenging races anywhere. In the history of the event, not a single race day has been lost to “unsailable” conditions, though the ocean floor is littered with bits of carbon and aluminum mast extrusions.



As the level of Olympic sailing is constantly raised throughout the world, athletes pursuing their dream of a medal are forced to train longer and harder and to search for higher levels of competition throughout the quad leading up to the Trials and then the Games. For 2013, LYC has expanded the invited classes to include all high-performance Olympic dinghy classes as well as the 29’r. Finns, Laser Full Rig, Laser Radial, 470, 49’r, and the 29’r are invited to attend next year’s version of the Lauderdale Olympic Classes Regatta (LOCR) which will be held the week after the Miami OCR. 



The Finn class will continue to compete for the Midwinter Championship and the winner of the 29’r class will be crowned the Midwinter East Champ. The name of the overall winner of each class will be inscribed on the Tim (“Tiny”) Miller perpetual trophy dedicated to the memory of one of the original core members of the Lauderdale YC race committee. Racing takes place February 8,9,10 and the club opens its facilities to training on February 4th. Special arrangements for post or pre-regatta training can be arranged through the club’s Olympic Training Guest program. 



Event information is available at the LYC website (http://www.lyc.org/web/guest/regattas). Preliminary NOR is attached. 



For further information please contact regatta chairman Ville Roberts Vilhelm.Roberts@almaco.cc or Tom Lihan TLihan@Matecumbe.com.